Among the services to be offered at the center will be help desk support, infrastructure management and IT systems monitoring.

Consulting and outsourcing service provider Capgemini has opened a technology center in the Polish city of Katowice, the company said Wednesday.

Capgemini is spending about $3.1 million to open the center, which will initially house about 135 workers. The center, located in the Katowice Special Economic Zone, will ultimately expand to more than 400 workers, Capgemini said. The company is no stranger to Poland: It has had a presence there since 1996, and employs more than 2,000 specialists.

Among the services to be offered at the center will be help-desk support, infrastructure management, and IT systems monitoring.

While Capgemini's Katowice center will cater mostly to companies in the West, Polish businesses are themselves becoming more interested in outsourcing , according to a study published last year by consultants at Accenture.

The study found that 62% of large Polish companies have outsourced IT operations, 38% have outsourced supply-chain management, and 19% have outsourced human-resource management. "The outsourcing practices of large Polish companies are very similar to the practices we see worldwide," said the study's authors.

Shortcomings in Poland's labor market and poor road infrastructure threaten the country's attractiveness as a location for service activities, such as IT, business processes and call centers, consulting firm AT Kearney's Chief Executive Officer Aleksander Kwiatkowski told a press conference Tuesday.

"Poland should improve two parameters - the attractiveness of its labor market and the business environment - to maintain its attractiveness' level," said Kwiatkowski. "In general, all elements of the business environment parameter remain at least at a satisfactory level, except for infrastructure."

Kwiatkowski was commenting on the company's annual Global Services Location Index for 2007, released late March, that analyzes the top 50 service locations worldwide against 41 measurements in three major categories - cost, availability and skills of personnel, and business environment. Poland was ranked 18th chiefly on the back of lower wage inflation and low infrastructure costs.

AT Kearney's analysis showed that the country lags behind in the category of foreign language skills, even though during the analyzed period of 2004-06 a significant improvement was noted. Observed trends also illustrate shortcomings in educational adjustments to the market needs. This situation is becoming more marked as skilled, young Poles leave the country to seek better-paid work in Western Europe, Kwiatkowski said.

According to Kwiatkowski, the picture is unlikely to alter within the next four to five years, but Poland is expected to remain an attractive location thanks to relatively-low business costs.

"I think in four-five years the situation could change," said Kwiatkowski. "Poland will certainly draw foreign investors' attention because of its financial attractiveness - at the end, it is always costs that count the most."Source:biznes.onet.pl

Russia has acknowledged that Poland made progress addressing the sanitary objections that resulted in an embargo on Polish meat products to Russia, Philip Tod, a spokesperson for the European Commission, told Interfax Central Europe Thursday."We received a reply from Russia to the information we supplied them about the embargo," said Tod, who is the spokesperson for the European Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou. "We consider it a positive step in the process. For the first time in writing, Russia acknowledged progress made by Poland."

Russia's latest letter to the European Commission follows information the EU sent to Russia on veterinary inspections that took place in Poland in February. Tod said Russia again recommends repeat inspections of Polish meat processing plants licensed to export to Russia. The European Commission has so far believed the new inspections were not necessary for the lifting of the trade ban.

"Until now, based on the information we provided to Russia, we did not think any further inspections would be necessary. The Russian authorities recommend an inspection of certain issues. We first have to reply to the latest letter and clarify issues before we take a position," Tod said. "We've undertaken to respond quickly and to provide the answer early next week."

The answer will be sent before the meeting of Commissioner Kyprianou with the Russian Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev, which is supposed to take place next week.

Russia introduced the trade ban on Polish food products in late 2005, accusing Poland of the failure to meet Russian quality standards and falsifications of veterinary and phytosanitary certificates. Poland retaliated late last year by blocking the negotiations of a new EU-Russia partnership and cooperation agreement.Source:biznes.onet.pl

4/12/2007

The Russian federal veterinary and phytosanitary regulator Rosselkhoznadzor has studied the materials of the joint Russian-Polish inspection and additionally requested EU documentation on the condition of state veterinary control in Poland, and has decided not to lift a ban on meat imports from the republic, the Russian watchdog said in a statement.

Though Poland's chief veterinary inspectorate has taken measures to eliminate a number of problems the inspection revealed, Rosselkhoznadzor has up to this point not received answers to a series of questions, which arose during the inspection.

To make an informed decision on the possible resumption of meat imports from Poland to Russia, Rosselkhoznadzor has proposed that the EU Commission's Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection carry out a joint inspection of the process of elimination of problems revealed in February 2007 and check the condition of a number of Poland's meat processing plants.

Web search firm Google will open offices and hire 280 people in Poland over the next two years as part of its drive to expand abroad, the company said on Wednesday.

IT companies such as PC maker Dell , Japan's Sharp <6753.t> and LG.Philips LCD <034220.ls> have flocked to Poland in recent years lured by a young, well-educated and cheap labour force in need of jobs.

California-based Google said it would use its Polish facilities, a research centre in the southern city of Krakow and a "centre of innovation" in south-western Wroclaw, to support its Polish and German clients and advertising products.

"Both cities offered amazing support from the local authorities and have a phenomenal level of graduates at the universities there," Colm Long, director of online sales and operations at Google, told Reuters in a brief interview.

Google officials declined to comment on how much they were planning to invest in central Europe's largest country.

Google has 13 offices in Asia, 22 in Europe and the Middle East, and 17 in the Americas.

mid Citigroup Inc.'s (C) global cost cutting spree an unlikely beneficiary could emerge in the form of Poland, which is seen as a top contender to attract back-office jobs from London.

Announcing its plans Wednesday, Citigroup said a key focus will be to move around 9,500 back-office and support jobs out of its expensive main offices into lower cost locations in the U.S. and internationally.

And there are few locations more expensive than London.

"It looks like some of the U.K. jobs could go to places like Poland," said Joseph Dickerson, an analyst at Atlantic Equities in London.

Citigroup's plan to move thousands of jobs to cheaper regions follows similar strategies from other major banks, including Credit Suisse Group (CS), which has built up support operations in Singapore and North Carolina among other locations, said a second analyst.

Poland would be an obvious choice for Citigroup because it has had an extensive banking network there since it bought Bank Handlowy w Warszawie in 2001.

The other European option would be Russia, where Citigroup has been opening branches recently, but the country's less stable political environment makes that move unlikely, the analyst added.

In total, Citigroup expects to slash around 17,000 jobs in an effort to cut expenses by $2.1 billion. As well as its plans for the back-office, the bank will also thin out the number of mid-level managers.

More than half the cuts - around 57% - will come from the bank's international operations, though the majority of the savings will be in the U.S. market, with consumer banking a key focus, Citi said.

The scale of job cuts in London is unclear, though Atlantic Equities' Dickerson argued it could be less than other countries because the U.K. has only a small retail banking operation.

Those employees that do find themselves in the job market, however, could get help from another U.S. giant, Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Dickerson suggested.

Bank of America has among the most aggressive European expansion plans and will be in need of back- and middle-office staff as well as potentially any managers dropped from Citi's investment banking and trading operations, he noted.Source: biznes.onet.pl

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey is in Poland where she has been discussing Switzerland's financial contribution to the country.

The money is part of Bern's SFr1 billion ($800 million) payment to the ten member states that joined the European Union in May 2004, an amount approved by Swiss voters last November.

On Tuesday - the first day of Calmy-Rey's two-day visit - the foreign minister discussed international and bilateral issues with Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Swiss foreign ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel said.

The relations between Switzerland – which is not a member of the EU – and Brussels were also a major topic, Knuchel added.

Calmy-Rey also met Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga and Regional Development Minister Grazyna Gesicka to discuss how the cohesion fund for Poland, estimated at SFr500 million, would be used.

According to Knuchel, Switzerland intends to start taking action by the end of the year.

Calmy-Rey told Swiss radio she wanted the money to go to Poland's poorest regions for reasons of efficiency and ensuring good visibility in Switzerland.

Funding would also go towards ensuring security at borders as well as environmental protection projects, she added.

The Swiss parliament still has to decide where the money should come from.

For its part, Poland expressed gratitude that Switzerland had opened up its work market to its workers.

Kosovo position

The question of Kosovo – Calmy-Rey has said the breakaway province should be independent from Serbia – was also debated.

"Poland is very interested by the Swiss position," said Knuchel, without giving further details.

The talks with Kaczynski also touched on the tax spat between Bern and Brussels. The EU maintains that low taxes for holding companies offered by some cantons violate a free trade agreement. Switzerland has denied this and the dispute is ongoing.

During an event attended by representatives from the political, economic and scientific worlds, the Swiss president spoke of Switzerland's relations with the EU.

Switzerland and Europe

"Europe is not just the EU," she said, adding that Switzerland was constantly improving its relations with the EU and that bilateral accords were the best way for an open and cooperative relationship between the two sides.

In 2006 the Swiss government made it clear it would continue its purely bilateral stance towards the EU, putting any idea of accession on hold.

However on Tuesday Switzerland's 26 cantons, which have a big say in Swiss daily life, for example regulating educational and police matters, said they did not rule out joining in the long-term.

Calmy-Rey will continue her visit to Poland – part of an extended trip to eastern Europe – on Wednesday. She has already visited Estonia and will travel to Latvia and Lithuania on Thursday.Source:http:swissinfo.org

Last year, the Poles bought 238,700 new cars. This year should be much better. “Sales may amount to at least 300,000 cars”, Witold Rogalski, Subaru Motor Polska CEO said.

According to Samar, the company monitoring the automotive market, nearly 28,000 new cars were sold in March for the best result since Poland joined the EU. March sales were 27 percent higher than in February and over 29.3 percent better than in the same period of last year. In the first quarter of this year, 72,800 new passenger cars were sold in Poland, or 24.5 percent more than in the same period of last year.

“This is the effect of selling old models and stabilization of law. The Ministry of Finance promises no more changes in the regulations concerning new cars. Besides, both individual clients and companies, are exchanging their cars”, Wojciech Drzewiecki, Samar CEO said.

Meanwhile, the main elements disturbing the market, i.e. unfavorable tax rules and no barriers for the imports of second-hand cars, did not stop the increase.

In March, Toyota was the leader as far as new passenger car sales in Poland are concerned with 3,953 cars sold. Skoda followed with 3,126 cars. Opel was third in the ranking with 3,010 cars. Fiat sold 2,460 cars while Ford 1,735 ones.

4/11/2007

hese plants are expected to ramp production levels during the calendar of2007. The EMS provider is continuing to ramp higher levels of productions in its existing Chinese plants. The company's investment during 2007 is expected to be related to the locations in Poland, Ukraine and India. The investment will take place at existing plants where the company sees increasing levels of production, 123 jump reports.Source:http:evertiq.com

The U.S. Ambassador to Poland, Victor Ashe, plans to leave his position later this year, ending the customary three-year term.

Ashe, previously Knoxville, Tennessee's mayor for 16 years, told The Knoxville News Sentinel he has given notice about his plans, the newspaper reported on its Web site Tuesday. He will most likely step down after July 4.

His term will end in August and the State Department has not received any word that Ashe was resigning before then, department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus told The Associated Press.

President George W. Bush chose Ashe, 62, as ambassador in April 2004, and Ashe began his term in the summer.

Ashe did not say what his plans are after returning to Knoxville later this year.

Ashe was a college roommate of Bush at Yale University and protege of former Tennessee Sen. and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker. He served nine years in the Tennessee Legislature before losing to Al Gore in 1984 for the U.S. Senate.

Ashe left office in Knoxville in December 2003 and was teaching at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government when Bush nominated him to become ambassador to Poland.

Polish Enterprise Fund V and Polish Enterprise Fund VI – private equity funds managed by Enterprise Investors – have finalised their purchase of the Komfort retail chain. PEF V and PEF VI have bought out 100 per cent of the Komfort retail chain for a total of €64m, with half the transaction amount financed with acquisition debt.

Komfort is a Polish network of stores selling carpets, rugs and laminate/hardwood floors. Established in the early 1990s and based in Szczecin, the company now has a network of 100 stores throughout Poland. Komfort achieved 2006 sales of around PLN 340m and operating profit close to PLN 20m.

EI said they plan to further expand the store network not just in Poland but potentially also in other CEE countries. The firm noted that they see Komfort as a good candidate for flotation on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in a few years.

Enterprise Investors has been active since 1990 as a private equity investor in Central and Eastern Europe. The firm manages six funds totaling €1.6bn. To date, these funds have invested €1bn in 104 companies from a range of sectors and have exited 88 investments with total proceeds of €1.2 billion.

Since 1993 EI has developed several retail chains in Poland, including Eldorado and Apteki Polskie, and has financed the expansion of the W.Kruk and Deni Cler exclusive jewelry and fashion salons. EI owned 100 per cent of Nomi, a Polish chain of DIY stores. As an investor in LPP, Enterprise Investors contributed to the introduction of the Reserved and Cropp fashion labels in CEE countries. In the last two years EI-managed funds acquired Nay, a chain of stores in Slovakia selling white and brown goods, as well as the Romanian food retailer Artima.Source:altassets.com

Poland's gas monopolist PGNiG is not planning to increase natural gas imports despite new regulations that came into force on April 7 and that oblige companies that import gas to Poland to keep reserves at a level equal to 3% of average imports.

"Currently we fulfill all of the requirements," PGNiG's spokesman Tomasz Fill told Interfax on Tuesday.

However, according to the new regulations in the fall of 2012, gas importers will have to increase these reserves from current 11 days to 30 days, which will require both building new storage capacities and increased gas imports.

"We are investing in new storage capacities but we planned to do that anyway despite the fact that new regulations were approved," Fill said. "We are planning to increase our storage capacity by more than 1 bln cubic meters to 2.8 bln cubic meters in 2012."

The legislation is aimed at improvement of Poland's energy security and will result in the establishment of 90-day crude oil and liquid fuel reserves in 2009 and 30-day natural gas reserves in 2012.

The company also pointed out that the increased gas imports will not need to come from Russia, and that increasing Polish dependence on Russia for gas is not necessary.

"We are planning for supplies of LNG gas and for supplies from the Norwegian pipeline by that time so that gas does not have to be purchased in Russia," Fill said.

Currently, PGNiG imports 6.8 bln cubic meters of gas from Russia which accounts for over 66% of total gas import and for nearly 50% of the domestic consumption which amounts to 14.3 bln cubic meters.

PGNiG did not estimate potential impact of implementation of the new regulations on gas prices.

"It is hard to predict what the gas prices will be in five years," Fill said.Source:biznes.onet.pl

Warsaw - Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey arrived in Warsaw on Tuesday on the second leg of a tour of the EU's new members in the eastern Baltic.

During her visit, she is scheduled to meet with Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and his prime ministerial twin brother Jaroslaw. The leaders are scheduled to discuss aspects of bilateral cooperation and the current political situation in Europe.

'I hope that there will also be talks on the theme of how Switzerland assesses the development of relations in the EU, and what direction the integration process is moving in,' the head of the president's office, Elzbieta Jakubiak, told the PAP news agency.

'Switzerland is a player of the so-called Great International Game and we would like her support in our efforts to organize the Expo in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau) in 2012,' she added.

Calmy-Rey is also to discuss Swiss financial support for improvements to Poland's transport infrastructure, educational system and environmental protection, PAP reported.

Poland is the second stop on her Baltic tour. On Monday she visited Estonia, the smallest and northernmost of the Baltic states.

'Estonia is the most brilliant of the EU's new members ... Switzerland would like further cooperation in the fields of the economy, the environment, science and social development,' Calmy-Rey said, according to an Estonian government press release.

On Wednesday Calmy-Rey will travel to Latvia, and on Thursday she will move on to Lithuania, her office confirmed.

Switzerland, while not an EU member state, is set to make a significant contribution to development in the EU's new members.

Last November the Alpine state allotted one billion Swiss francs (817.39 million dollars at current prices) in aid to the ten states which joined the EU in 2004. Poland is to receive almost half the total, 489 million francs, the Swiss foreign ministry confirmed.

Estonia is set to receive 39.9 million francs, Latvia 59.9 million and Lithuania 70.9 million. Funds are expected to begin flowing at the end of 2007, and to flow for up to ten years.

4/10/2007

A few years ago, Poland was a favorite destination for European manufacturers looking to cut costs. But with wages rising and a shortage of skilled workers, it might not remain the outsourcing hotspot for long.

A few years ago, Swedish appliances manufacturer Electrolux closed its plant in the southern German city of Nüremberg and began producing dishwashers in Poland. Carmaker Opel, too, decided to build its "Zafira" in the Polish town of Gliwice.

It's a trend that seemed inevitable when Poland joined the European Union in 2004. With its low labor costs and huge pool of workers, German workers feared their eastern European neighbor would pry away their jobs by becoming the destination of choice for companies looking to stay competitive in an ever globalizing world.

It didn't turn out exactly that way. While Poland was once a prime low-wage destination, that is changing. A shortage of skilled workers has led to wage increases that make Poland less of a bargain for outsourcing than it once was.

Heading further east

Electrolux invested 40 million euros ($53.5 million) in the Polish town of Olawa before closing the plant in Nürenberg. The move to Poland meant that many employees of the AEG subsidiary in Germany lost their jobs.

Kazimierz Kimso, regional head of the Polish Solidarnosc labor union, says that little can be done to stop jobs from moving to cheaper locations.

"Naturally, we have solidarity with our foreign colleagues who have lost their jobs. But we also are happy when new jobs come, since unemployment is very high," Kimso said. But, he added, things could just as well change quickly for Poland.

"We are by all means aware that the production today is moved from Germany or other old EU countries to Poland," he said. "But tomorrow this can continue on in the direction of Ukraine. That's naturally a development that we aren't pleased about."

In addition to its low-cost value, Poland also offers other charms for international investors.

In 1996, the Polish government turned the Olawa area into a special economic zone. Investors who wanted to relocate there, were offered lower tax rates. Even with Poland joining the European Union, this tax break will remain until 2017.

The hunt for skilled workers

Despite the obvious advantages of doing business in Poland, international companies are gradually discovering a downside, too.

When Electrolux first moved to the country, the Swedish company had problems finding qualified workers. Boleslaw Januszkiewicz, who heads up a large boat motor plant, has also found it difficult to find employees with the skills he needed.

"At our company, for the boat motor plant, we have between 11 and 150 open positions each month. That's for normally very skilled welders, fitters and controllers. Our wages have increased sharply. The only people who don't earn very much are the new employees who are doing their first apprenticeships," Januszkiewicz said.

Although Poland has cheaper labor costs than Germany, that's no longer a primary reason for companies to relocate to Poland, said economics expert Clemens Rode at the Polish office of Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

"Now companies have to look beyond wages and compete with each other for good workers," Rode said. It's important for European countries to continue investing there, as a strong Polish economy is good for all of Europe, he added.

The Interior Ministry department for economic security has exposed a Moscow company that illegally imported falsified low-quality perfumes from Poland and sold them on a large scale in Russia. The press service of the department told Interfax on Monday that the sale of the falsified perfumes using the trademarks of well-known Russian and foreign cosmetics' companies was registered in over 30 territories of the Russian Federation. During searches in warehouses department officers seized over 1.2 million bottles of clearly counterfeit perfumes and eau de toilette worth 150 million rubles. "Thirty three counterfeit stamps of the Economic Development Ministry, the Moscow city education department, the Federal Testing Agency, the representative office of Procter & Gamble, transportation and trading companies of Russia, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Ukraine were seized that had been used for legalizing deals and documenting forged certificates of conformity," the press service said.

Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Only 90 companies went bankrupt in the first quarter, half the level reached last year.

In the January-March period, only 90 companies went bankrupt, or 45 percent fewer than in the same period of last year, the report of Euler Hermes, the company insuring payments, shows. Production companies go bankrupt most often, they constitute 31 percent of the whole amount. Among them, clothes, shoes and food producers get into trouble most often. Every fifth of the bankrupt companies was a wholesaler.

“Ironically, despite a boom in construction, the majority of wholesalers sold wood and construction materials”, Tomasz Starus from Euler Hermes comments.Source:pulsbiznesu.pl